Effective environmental risk management strategies increasingly apply risk-based methods for priority setting. This paper presents a comparative risk assessment of industrial waste streams in Portugal, where such a prioritization is even more important due to a missing integrative framework to address the industrial waste disposal. The ranking represents a prioritization of waste types and geographical locations based on potential risk to health and environment. Alternatives are compared for public health, environmental, and other risk attributes, providing managers with transparent decision criteria and a semi-quantitative risk-based foundation for decision making. The methodology developed requires limited analytical effort and is an inexpensive alternative to large detailed studies for setting priorities based on risk in the early stages of environmental planning. By developing probability distributions, an uncertainty analysis adds weight to the findings and highlights areas where better data is useful
The methodology is applied to industries in Portugal that are known to produce and dispose of hazardous wastes. Industries are ranked in a semi-quantitative process on five scales, by the human and ecological toxicity of the hazardous waste components, their bioaccumulation potential, environmental persistence, and finally by the annual quantity of disposed hazardous waste. Further, geographical areas are compared for the most significant potential environmental impacts based on area specific exposure factors
